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Opinion: Japan prepares for regional tension

The Japanese Self Defence Forces Navy training destroyer JS Asagiri, right, is already moored as JDS Kashima is pushed alongside by tugs at the port of Havana on July 5, 2014.

Photograph by: YAMIL LAGE
, AFP/Getty Images

To the victorious Americans, it seemed like a logical move one year after the United States and its allies had defeated Japan in 1945.

Having experienced the shock of seeing two of their cities almost destroyed by atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese were in no position to question the American insistence on Japan accepting a new constitution that banned it from having any further military capability of an offensive nature. U.S. allies — including Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada — were in full agreement with the U.S. measure.

To ensure American wishes were complied with quickly, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur directed a team of young Americans to draft the new Japanese constitution within 10 days. Although inexperienced in drafting such a constitution for a sovereign nation, the team met the deadline.

Now, almost seven decades later, Japan’s latest prime minister, nationalist-minded Shinzo Abe, has decided Japan’s post-war constitution is out of step with the modern realities of present-day Japan, particularly the prohibition against Japan having any offensive military capability or involvement in overseas military operations.

Notwithstanding such seemingly draconian restrictions on Japan’s military capability, the reality is that the original strict prohibitions against possession of armed forces by Japan were skilfully circumvented by the Japanese — with the concurrence of the Americans — permitting Japan to develop its present-day self-defence forces, which are highly sophisticated by any nation’s standards, although ostensibly only to be used for defensive purposes or United Nations-approved operations.

While some in Japan regard Abe’s move to re-interpret the existing constitution forced on the defeated Japanese government as primarily stemming from his nationalistic views — he and many in his right-wing party have criticized the way Japan’s role in the Second World War has been presented by other countries — others believe the restrictions against Japan having a more active military role on the international scene need to take into account new realities. One key such reality is the changed nature of the Far East region, especially since the remarkable trade and economic advances made by China, including China’s enhanced military capability and involvement in several territorial disputes in its region.

Those changed realities have extremely important implications not just for Beijing’s regional neighbours but also for non-regional countries, including the United States and Canada, whose trade and economic relations with the Far East, especially China, have become critically important. In Canada’s case, China is now this country’s second largest trading partner after the U.S.

From a purely Canadian perspective, any developments in the Far East that threaten the stability of that region, especially involving Canada’s growing trade relations with key trade partners such as China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, could have highly negative implications for Canada, including British Columbia.

Recent developments in the Far East have increasingly caused concern, not solely among countries in that area but beyond as well.

One of the growing concerns of some regional governments arises over the increased militancy of China regarding territorial disputes between China and some of its neighbours, notably Japan.

In recent months China and Japan have become embroiled in territorial waters disputes in which both claimed jurisdiction over the same territories. China and Vietnam also recently engaged in disputes with those countries, sending numerous ships into confrontations in disputed territorial waters. Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou reiterated Monday Taiwan’s sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands (Tiaoyutai to Taiwanese) now controlled by Japan in the East China Sea.

While such current territorial disputes have not led to recent full-scale military clashes, in the past they have. On one occasion, a territorial waters dispute between China and Vietnam led to a military clash, resulting in the death of numerous Vietnamese sailors.

Some fear the increased determination of Beijing to assert its claims over disputed territorial waters, combined with an equally determined approach taken by the assertive government led by Shinzo Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has the potential to increase regional tension in the future.

Recognizing the potential danger arising from territorial disputes, especially those involving China and Japan, governments in the region should look more seriously at establishing some mechanism to peacefully discuss such disputes, as strongly urged by Taiwan’s Ma Ying-jeou.

Given seemingly never-ending tension over disputed territorial waters, such a dialogue is very much in every country’s long-term interests.

Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, is an Ottawa-based commentator who served in East Asia.

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